


Just a Shot Away

by glorious_spoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, References to Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julie's tended bar in this joint for eleven years and in that time she's seen a thousand guys just like him come through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Shot Away

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh, a storm is threat'ning_  
>  My very life today  
> If I don't get some shelter  
> Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away  
> War, children, it's just a shot away  
> It's just a shot away  
>  -The Rolling Stones; 'Gimme Shelter'

Julie's tended bar in this joint for eleven years and in that time she's seen a thousand guys just like him come through. Drifters; men with no future and a past they'd just as soon forget. They stop for cheap drinks and a few minutes of halfhearted flirting, and then they slide on through. This one is prettier than most, but that's not what makes her look twice. She's not sure what does.  
  
"Get you something, sugar?" She leans over the scarred bar surface, hipshot, head cocked, inviting him to look. Her shirt's not quite trashy, but it's cut low enough to keep the tips coming. In a different kind of place, she'd be too old to play this game, but not here.  
  
He gives her cleavage a dutifully appreciative glance before smiling up at her. It's a tired, lopsided smile and it doesn't quite reach his tired green eyes. "You know what today is?"  
  
Julie blinks. "Thursday, isn't it?"  
  
"Nah." He nods at the clock, which reads 12:17 AM. "It's Friday. September eighteenth."  
  
He says the date like there's something significant about it, though she can't guess what that might be. "I guess you're right."  
  
"Yeah." He glances over his shoulder at the barroom behind him. Smoky, dim, and not very clean. A couple of hard-faced teenagers hustling pool at the table in the back, a few grizzled old-timers nursing their beers and smoking cheap cigarettes, but other than that, nothing much to look at. "Nice place you got here."  
  
The funny thing is, she doesn't think he's joking. There's genuine warmth in his smile, and she thinks that if it wasn't so damn sad, it'd be dazzling. She can't help but give him a real smile in return. "If you say so."  
  
"I do say so." He digs around in the pocket of his leather coat for a minute before coming up with a roll of twenties, which he sets down on the bar. "Get me a whiskey, would you? Best you have, straight-up. And get yourself something, too."  
  
"I don't drink with customers." She's already peeling a bill off of the roll. The best whiskey they have in this place isn't anything too special, but he's got to know that. He laughs.  
  
"Oh, come on. Not ever?"  
  
"Not ever," Julie says firmly, but she's still smiling. Been too long, maybe, since a good-looking man hit on her, and that's a damn sad commentary all on its own. She slides the drink across to him, and he catches it in one big, blunt-fingered hand. There are scrapes across his knuckles. Fighting hands. Again, nothing special for this joint, but there's an easy grace about him that she likes, a gentleness under the layers of wear and tear.  
  
Or hell, maybe it is just that he's damn handsome. "My shift's over in ten minutes," she says. "Maybe then I'll let you buy me a drink."  
  
For a second he looks startled, then he grins, a shadow of what might have been blinding charm, once. "It's a deal."  
  
"I said maybe," Julie warns, but he just tilts his glass to her and drinks.  
  
She doesn't think either one of them is surprised ten minutes later when she hands her timecard to old Jim and comes around to his side of the bar. "So, what's so special about September eighteenth?"  
  
He shakes his head, holds out his hand. "I'm Dean."  
  
"Julie." His palm is warm and dry, heavily calloused. He's wearing work boots and a flannel shirt untucked over faded jeans, same as any of the other out-of-work day laborers in here, but again, there's something just a little off about it, like something about him doesn't quite fit. "I'm drinking tequila, if you're still buying."  
  
"I said I would, didn't I?" He beckons to Tammi, who's working third tonight. "You heard the lady."  
  
Tammi's manicured eyebrows go almost all the way up to her hairline, and the grin she gives Julie when she plunks down the tequila and lime wedges is so enormous that Julie has to roll her eyes. The tequila bites pleasantly at her tongue, chased with the cool green flavor of lime, and she breathes out a long sigh when she sets the glass down, smiles at Dean. "So, what brings you to town?"  
  
"Just passing through." He tilts his head back to down the rest of his whiskey, and she can see the shadow of a fading bruise on his jaw, the smooth line of his neck, strangely vulnerable. Up close, he's younger than she thought at first; it's the worn-out, haunted look in his eyes that's deceiving. Makes him look like he's seen a hundred years of life when he can't be more than thirty.   
  
It's an expression she got used to seeing in the mirror, when she was still with Jerry. Back when things were bad.  
  
She shoves the thought away. "It your birthday?"  
  
"What makes you ask?"  
  
She shrugs. "Bought yourself a slug of our best whiskey for the occasion. I was just wondering."  
  
"My birthday." The thoughtful way he says it is enough to tell her that it isn't, but then he ducks his head and smiles, lines crinkling into the corners of his eyes. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."  
  
That doesn't really make much sense, but something warns her not to ask.  
  
She takes another shot of tequila, licks the taste of salt and lime from her lips, and straightens, arching her back to stretch out the kinks. She doesn't miss the appreciative way he watches, although there's still something distant and strange about the curve of his smile, like he's trying to be happy but can't quite make it all the way there. It's a look that throws her off-balance, and she braces her hand against the bar to stand. "Well. Thanks for the drink."  
  
"Wait," Dean says quietly, and catches her hand in one of his, rough thumb ghosting over the inner surface of her wrist. It's gentle; she could pull away if she wanted to, but she doesn't. For several seconds he just stares up at her with those hurt eyes. Then, like he just suddenly noticed what he was doing, lets go, looks down, mouth tilting into an embarrassed, lopsided smile. It makes him look more alive than he has since he sat down, and Julie thinks that's why she touches his hand again.  
  
"I live over the bar," she says, and knows that he'll be able to read what she's offering in everything she isn't saying. "Might have a bottle of something better than the shit you're drinking."  
  
He looks her up and down, thoughtful and assessing in a way she isn't used to. "Never could refuse a woman with good taste in whiskey," he says finally. 

***

He pushes her against the brick wall outside, next to the stairs that lead to her little upstairs loft. One hand braced against the wall, the other sliding across the curve of her jaw as he leans in to kiss her. She rests her hand against his rough cheek and feels the heat of him through layers of denim and flannel and leather.  
  
When they break apart, her eyes flutter open. She didn't even notice closing them. In the dim light of two grungy yellow streetlamps, his face is shadowed and serious. "You sure about this?"  
  
"This ain't my first time at the rodeo, Dean," she tells him sternly, and his smile is almost genuine this time.  
  
"Just making sure," he says, and kisses her again, slow and thorough. It's a good kiss, and Julie decides to just go with it.

***

Julie has rules about letting guys into her apartment. It's not like she's never broken them before but those first moments are always nerve-wracking, waiting to see if this is the time she misjudged. She never did have the best taste in men, God knows; otherwise she never would have married Jerry in the first place.

Dean doesn't push her up against the wall this time. He doesn't even move after he steps into her dark entry hall, just stands there and watches her lock the door, hook the security chain, and slide the deadbolt home.

"So, uh," he says when she finishes, and the hesitance in his voice unwinds the scared little something hiding in the pit of Julie's belly.

"Let's not talk about this," she says firmly, and steps in close to plant a firm kiss on his mouth.

  
His hands find a resting place on the curve of her hips, thumbs riding up under the hem of her shirt. "I'm totally on board with not talking," he mumbles, and then his hands are sliding around to cup her ass and his mouth is soft and lewd on the soft skin of her throat and she couldn't talk even if she wanted to.  
  
They make out like teenagers right there in the hallways for long minutes, until Julie's breath is coming hard and fast and Dean has managed to mostly lose his shirt. It's dangling from his wrists, but he's still holding onto her waist, fingers digging a little into the skin. Julie laughs, tugs it away from him. "Ain't going anywhere."  
  
He laughs too, short and startled, and there's something in it she doesn't entirely like. She pulls away a little, takes his hand, lacing their fingers together like a couple of kids at a highschool dance.  
  
"Come on," she says, and leads him down the hall toward her bedroom.

***

They fuck on her unmade bed, slow and unexpectedly sweet, soft ragged breaths and rough hands and the solid heat of his body between her legs. He's not a talker, but that's okay by her. The sound he makes when she straddles him, hands gripping her hips, face gone soft and hazy with pleasure, is better than anything words could say anyway.

She leaves the lights on, after. Been a long time since she's bothered being self-conscious about her body, about the way her tits have started to sag and her belly's gone a little soft, about the long, twisting ridges of scar tissue from where Jerry threw her through a storm window in the winter of '97. She's expecting a comment about those, maybe even a question, but he doesn't say anything. He notices them, Julie knows--the bruises and broken ribs and black eyes all healed, but a hundred and twenty stitches don't just disappear no matter now much time you put behind you--but he doesn't say anything.

He has some scars himself. A freshly-healed gash across his collarbone, what looks like shrapnel over his left hip. A star tattooed on his chest and an inexplicable handprint burned into his shoulder. He shivers when she kisses it.

Still, he's got a damn fine body to go with that pretty face, broad shouldered and solidly muscular, and hell if she knows what he's doing here when he could be picking up college girls three streets over, pretty girls with smooth skin and bright uncomplicated smiles. The mellow lamplight makes him look younger, hides the premature lines forming between his brows and in the corners of his mouth, but it doesn't do shit about the shadows still lingering in his eyes.  
 

He disposes of the condom in her trashcan and flips the light off and then sits down on the edge of her bed, a vague shape outlined by the light filtering in through the blinds. "I should go."  
  
"You can stay," Julie murmurs, no real idea why she's offering. "If you want."  
  
She's pretty sure he's gonna say no, but he surprises her by swinging his legs over onto the mattress and putting his head down, face turned away from her. "Thanks," he says quietly.  
  
Julie reaches out, flattens her palms tentatively against his shoulder-blade. Despite everything, it still feels like an intrusion. Like more intimacy than she has a right to. "So, what's so special about today?"  
  
Dean's shoulders hitch, and then he snorts. "Long story."  
  
He sounds like he's expecting her to push it, but she doesn't. Maybe she understands a little something about the kind of anniversaries that send a person to a bar by himself to drink out his demons.   
  
It's been eleven years since she walked out of her house with nothing but her purse and the clothes on her back and hitched a ride to a nowhere town three states away, and she knows that sometimes you have to lift your glass just to remember you're still alive.

***

It's after three in the morning when she wakes up to an empty bed. Truth to tell, she wasn't really expecting anything different, and she's about ready to roll back over and fall asleep when she hears a quiet creak out in her kitchen.

Her terrycloth robe's on the back of the door and she wraps it around herself before venturing out. He's sitting at her kitchen table, fully dressed, pale moonlight outlining his profile in silver.

"Hey." 

He doesn't startle, doesn't even look up. His fingers are tracing complex, aimless patterns on the tabletop. "Hey. Sorry if I woke you up."

"That's okay," Julie says softly, step-sliding a little closer. The linoleum floor is cold under her feet, the angles of her cabinets gone soft and a little skewed in the uncertain light, and everything feels a little unreal. "How about that drink?"

Dean glances up at that, brows arching, expression unreadable. "Sure," he says. "Thanks."

***

She pours Johnny Walker into two juice glasses and slides the larger of the two across the table to Dean. He spins it thoughtfully in his fingers for a moment, then lifts it. The motion is a little awkward, like he's a man who's not used to making toasts. "To new beginnings, I guess," he says, and looks surprised when Julie leans over to clink her glass against his.

"I'll drink to that."

The whiskey burns sweet and warm on her tongue, and her skin is cool where her bathrobe gaps open. Dean takes a cautious sip, then smiles, strange and kind of sad. "It's good."

"Yeah."

"Thanks," he says, and she's pretty sure he's not talking about the liquor or the sex.

"You're welcome," she says back, and means it.


End file.
